How to Create a Haze Effect in Photoshop

In a recent post we looked at the process of creating a haze effect in Lightroom. Well, Photoshop can also be used to create some really beautiful haze effects, so we’re going to cover that as well. In this tutorial we’ll add a purple or violet haze effect that looks great with many photos. If you don’t want to follow along with the tutorial you can download a Photoshop action to automatically create the effect for you, and we also have a set of 14 Haze Photoshop Actions that can be purchased.

For the tutorial we will be using this sample photo.

And here is a sneak peak at what we will be creating.

Ok, let’s get started. We’re going to be adding several different adjustment layers to get the haze effect, and if you’re not familiar with adding adjustment layers you can simply click on the icon shown below and then select the type of adjustment layer that you want.

Click on the icon and select to add a Levels adjustment layer. Then change the shadow output level to 40.

This will lighten the photo and give it a basic haze effect. At this stage the image looks like this.

Next, add a Brightness and Contrast adjustment layer and set the contrast to -40.

Then add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and set the saturation to -10.

Desaturating the image with a setting of -10 is a pretty subtle change, but it will help to get the overall haze effect that we’re after.

And the last adjustment layer that we’ll add is a “Solid Color” layer. Set the color to #c45fc3, which is a nice violet/purple. Then set the blend mode of the layer to “soft light” and set the opacity to 40.

You can adjust the opacity as needed to work with your photo. The higher the opacity the strong the purple color will be, and a lower opacity will make the purple more subtle.

Now you have a nice purple haze effect and you are done! Here’s the finished product.